MOVIE REVIEW: Catch 'Particle Fever' for a dose of awe and inspiration

“Particle Fever” is a subatomic thriller that not only captures one of mankind's most significant breakthroughs, it makes physics and physicists look hip.

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By Al AlexanderFor The Patriot Ledger

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Al AlexanderFor The Patriot Ledger

Posted Mar. 21, 2014 at 12:00 AM
Updated Mar 21, 2014 at 6:31 PM

By Al AlexanderFor The Patriot Ledger

Posted Mar. 21, 2014 at 12:00 AM
Updated Mar 21, 2014 at 6:31 PM

PARTICLE FEVER

(Unrated, but suitable for all.) A documentary by Mark Levinson and David Kaplan, At Kendall Square, Cambridge. Grade: A-

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PARTICLE FEVER

(Unrated, but suitable for all.) A documentary by Mark Levinson and David Kaplan, At Kendall Square, Cambridge. Grade: A-

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To make history, you need to break some atoms. And when the history you’re trying to make is nothing less than finding the root of all matter, the so-called “God particle,” you’re going to need to break a lot of them. But what if there are too many physicists in the kitchen? What do you do? You build the $9 billion Large Hadron Collider and link it online to 10,000 scientists the world over, that’s what. And to expose your research to the world, you hire a couple of physics-minded directors in Mark Levinson and David Kaplan to make a documentary chronicling every triumph and heartbreak en route to a Nobel Prize.

The result is “Particle Fever,” a subatomic thriller that not only captures one of mankind’s most significant breakthroughs, it makes physics and physicists look hip. I’m not sure what’s more impressive: the experiment, or the image makeover the film gives to the men and women who fret over their theorem and formulas like most mortals fret over their next tweet. Both are impressive, but considering all the math, graphs and charting that goes into proving the existence of the “God particle,” aka, the Higgs boson, it would likely go right through our heads if not for the insights gleaned vicariously through the eyes of the six highly personable physicists we meet over the experiment’s four-year course. They range from wide-eyed newbie Monica Dunford, a hands-on tech at the Hadron Collider in Switzerland, to 30-year veteran Savas Dimopoulos, a Stanford University legend who feels his entire life’s work will live or die on what his colleagues in Geneva uncover.

Their stories, as well as the other four – Mike Lamont, Martin Aleksa, Nima Arkani-Hamed and the leader of the experiment, Fabiola Gianotti – form the heart and soul of the film, but the awe comes via the collider. Five-stories tall and located deep underground, the 17-mile track sends atoms racing around in circles at massive speeds before putting them on a collision course. And when they crash, every piece of debris is chronicled and measured. But finding the coveted Higgs boson won’t be easy. A physicist once said finding the “God particle” is like “trying to hear a tiny, delicate whisper over the massive thundering din of a NASCAR race.” And in the film, another physicists notes that finding Higgs boson will require more people and resources than NASA used in traveling to the moon. And like NASA, the team suffers catastrophic setbacks, which only feed an already skeptical press. But they fight on with resolve, and most of all, patience.

Which they’ll need as millions of collisions may produce only one viable result in the span of two years.

Page 2 of 2 - And as the tension builds, so does the suspense. Will they find Higgs boson? And if they do, will it prove to be the end of the road for discovering new particles? Or, will it open new doors to not just ours, but other universes? Editor Walter Murch (“Apocalypse Now”) expertly adds to that tension while also finding creative ways to reveal the true beauty of our world and its origins. It may not change your life, but it will awe and inspire you in ways you never thought possible.